Ah, Spring when a young man’s fancy when Heather’s schedule explodes and she wonders if cloning technology could please step things up a bit.

This week I’ll be headed to Atlanta, I’m speaking at WordCamp and I’ll be helping out in the Happiness Bar (think Apple Store version not martini) at least for the hour(s) I’m assigned and more likely as long as they’ll let me be useful. It’s my time speaking on a topic not grief related since everything fell apart and I’m so glad to feel like I’m hitting my stride once again.

That said over the next few weeks expect a few gaps in the menu plans.

How did last week work out? Did you stick to your plan or fall off the wagon. I didn’t stick to the plan, but we didn’t resort to the drive through, so I’ll call it a sorta success.

Let’s kick off with an important Home-Ec 101 housekeeping note: I selected the winner of the $100 Amazon Gift Card via random drawing and notified (her?) yesterday morning. I am waiting for a response. If the email address starting with kweiss looks familiar, please check your spam folder, it’s important.

And back to your regularly scheduled, if a bit late, Menu Monday.

Last week was a very busy week with a fair amount of overtime.. On Friday I decided instead of going the Spanish and tapenade route that I needed to just be creative and made fish tacos while we binged on House of Cards Season 3.

Wow.

I’ll make them again this week just to confirm the recipes / technique, but it’s been requested to go on the frequent flyer program and it will. Thankfully fish tacos really aren’t a labor intensive meal: I used grouper, but any firm white fish will work, Chef Prudhomme’s Red Fish Magic seasoning, a thin coat of olive oil, and baked until just done. The shredded cabbage was just tossed with a tiny bit of honey, lime juice, and fresh cilantro. What made the tacos though was the sauce. I used just a couple of canned chipotle peppers, just like I do to make chipotle mayo, equal parts mayo and sour cream, a minced garlic clove, a squirt of lime and a little cilantro.

We may or may not have eaten ourselves into food comas. Which completely defeated the point of abstaining from meat, but sometimes after a very long week, good food and better company is the answer. Unfortunately, stress is delicious.

What’s on the menu for this week?

Monday – clean out refrigerator night As soon as I get off from work, we’ve got some yard work to tackle. As annoying as Daylight Savings is, I’m thankful for the brighter evenings.

I’m writing the menu this week from a hotel room in Charlotte, I was up here for business. I’ll be packing up and heading home shortly and when I get there, the minions will want to be fed.

Having a menu plan makes life easier. Tonight’s dinner is simple, fast, and flexible enough that if I’m missing an ingredient I can substitute with another. While I can’t know how I’ll feel on a given day, I can take a look at the calendar and know if I’m going to be short on time and when life throws a curve ball, we can suck it up and have sandwiches, or as the kids have dubbed it a snacky dinner.

What does your week look like? Will you be trying anything new?

Monday Sausage Skillet, I’ll be substituting in kale and bell peppers in lieu of the cabbage in the recipe.

Saturday – To Be Determined it may be clean out the refrigerator night (CORN) or it could be a recipe I need to photograph, it’s going to depend on my energy and enthusiasm, I think a stuffed flank steak might fit the bill.

Well, last week didn’t work out as planned. There were a lot more let’s make do with what we have that’s quick dinners, but I was able to reshoot one of the most popular recipes on this site.

Quick beef and cabbage skillet, it’s a handful of ingredients and thirty minutes until you’ve got a warm, filling (and believe it or not paleo if you’re into that) meal.

If I keep this up and manage to re-shoot one recipe a week, I may manage to catch up by 2018.

I kid.

Mostly.

I also started to make an interesting chicken fajita soup but I left the wheat-free flour somewhere else and ended up making a tortilla soup that the family loved, but it was too thrown together to write up. It’s still movement in the right direction and I’ll take that.

So what’s up for next week? Well, I’ll be sharpening my knives if the sharpening stone and ceramic rod arrive (they should). Lent starts this week and I’m going to buckle down on the whole let’s not eat out thing, unless I’m on the road for work. I have to have the practical caveat in there, sorry.

I used my stick blender to experiment with a sauce for fish tacos, it still needs some tweaking before I share it, but we’re on to something good. I didn’t make pho on Wednesday, instead I went with a Must Go style soup, loosely based on Sausage and Sweet Potato Soup.

And then, I finally broke out some of my photography stuff and managed to get a decent picture of chicken bog.

This is a big step for me; I just haven’t had the mental or personal bandwidth to do this. And if any of you have any idea what I have done with my tripod, that’d be good to know. I guess it’s just lost in that mental fog of 2013. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyhow, let’s keep the ball rolling and make plans for this week:

Monday – CORN (That’s clean out refrigerator night as there is a ton of that chicken bog left)

Saturday – Chicken roasted with mushrooms, peppers, and onions -It’s definitely time to redo these photos- Roasted potatoes, some kind of green vegetable or salad, it’s going to depend on what looks during the week.

Here’s hoping we can keep that momentum going and have another good week.